Around fourteen million Brits use Facebook and other social networking sites to keep up with old friends or make new ones. A group of British divorce lawyers are claiming that social networking sites like Facebook are tempting people to cheat on their spouses – and the website has been cited in 20% of recent divorce cases. According to the attorneys, people are being caught having inappropriate sexual chats with people who are not their spouse, and in the electronic age it is just too easy for their spouse to catch them at it. Flirty emails and messages have been reported, as well as evidence of actual affairs.

In one case a woman discovered that her husband was planning to divorce her when she read his public status update on Facebook. In another case, a woman divorced her husband after learning he was carrying on a virtual affair with a woman he met on Second Life, a virtual world where people are able to reinvent themselves.

Some software companies are cashing in on the trend by developing applications that let suspicious spouses spy on their partner’s online activities. Read more about how social networking can ruin a marriage at Facebook fuelling divorce, research claims.

If you believe your partner is being unfaithful to you, please contact our firm for expert legal counsel.